Environmental Benefits

Through landowner enrollment in GreenTrees, we join together in achieving a vital forest restoration and conservation effort to improve the air, soil, land, and river ecosystem. When landowners plant GreenTrees, they effectively begin a "butterfly effect" that start conditions with ripple effects providing significant local, regional, state and national impact.

	The Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV) was once a 24.7 million acre complex of forested and emergent wetlands. Today more than 18 million acres, or 80% of the forested lands, have been cleared, thus reducing natural flooding by 60%.
	The LMAV serves as a migratory flyway for 60% of all U.S. bird species and home to 40% of North America's waterfowl.
	Biologists estimate that in just 7 years, a cottonwood/hardwood inter-planted forest in the LMAV would hold 200% more migratory birds.
	The EPA estimates that a minimum of 12 tons of soil wash into the Gulf from every acre of LMAV cropland. A one million acre restored forest would prevent at least 12 million tons of soil runoff.
	One million acres of restored bottomland hardwood forests in the LMAV could sequester enough carbon to fully offset all emissions from three coal-fired power plants within 15 years.

Be a part of safeguarding the rural character of your community while contributing to the restoration of a regional ecosystem that impacts your backyard and beyond.